When feeding asbestos cement slates for roofing or like panels to a cutter to cut the panels to the desired dimensions and punch nail holes, the operator usually takes off the panels one by one manually from panel blocks and feeds them to the cutter in timed relation to the cutting or punching action of the cutter. With such method, the feed rate is lower than is afforded by the machine, and a very poor operation efficiency will result. Moreover, the manual feeding operation requires a skilled operator.